When I Meet the Moon - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The moment the words fell, a man in uniform walked out from inside the store and called Fu Shize over to help. He acknowledged the call, nodded lightly toward the two of them, and turned to walk inside.

Du Gefei also realized that these two actually knew each other, and her face turned green.

Yun Li said softly, "Then I'll head out first, too."

"Oh," Du Gefei adjusted her expression and grabbed her arm, "I'm leaving as well, let's go together."

Yun Li felt a bit resistant, but she didn't pull away, walking on her own toward the escalator.

Du Gefei walked beside her, chatting casually as if making small talk: "You guys know each other?"

Yun Li: "Sort of."

"Really?" Du Gefei let out a sigh, her tone carrying a hint of playful reproach, "Then you should have told me earlier this morning; I definitely wouldn't have done that kind of thing. It's so awkward for me like this."

Yun Li turned her head to look at her.

A smile still hung on Du Gefei's face: "It's fine, though. I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose."

"......"

Yun Li had never seen someone so shameless.

Shifting the blame onto others could actually be taken to such an extreme.

The bad mood from arguing with Yun Yongchang had not yet subsided, and now she had inexplicably been used as a pawn by this stranger right in front of Fu Shize. Her lip line straightened; she felt that not losing her temper was already giving her more than enough face.

Yun Li said slowly, "If I remember correctly, today is the first time we've actually spoken to each other."

"Oh, right. Since we've never spoken before, how do you remember me then?" As if completely unaware of Yun Li's emotions, Du Gefei blinked, "I'm quite flattered."

Yun Li perfunctorily shot back: "And you?"

Du Gefei: "I have a good memory."

Yun Li: "Is that so."

"Come to think of it, you really look a lot like a very good friend of mine. Every time she sees something I've taken a fancy to, she deliberately buys the exact same thing." Having paved the way for so long, Du Gefei finally cut to the chase and said with a realization, "Right, I've never seen you show any interest in this handsome guy before—was it because you heard me asking President Xu for his WeChat handle?"

Yun Li was momentarily speechless.

She was rendered completely at a loss for words by such absurd remarks.

Taking her silence as tacit agreement, Du Gefei smiled: "You misunderstood, though. I have zero interest in this kind of po—" She paused, finding a milder word: "—in repairmen with no particular competence."

Yun Li frowned: "What did you say?"

"Didn't you see earlier? Covered in dust up to his arms, filthy as hell," Du Gefei said. "I originally thought that since he was President Xu's friend, he should at least be able to manage a store manager position, but seeing it this way, their relationship isn't that great either."

"......"

Years ago, for a period of time, Yun Li's family conditions had been extremely poor.

Back then, Yang Fang had nearly suffered complications during Yun Ye's birth and had to recuperate her health at home. Coincidentally, the factory where Yun Yongchang worked went bankrupt, leaving the household with no income and struggling to survive. Not daring to remain idle even though he couldn't find a job, he later relied on carrying bricks at construction sites to support the family.

Whenever there was a family gathering, there were always a few people who relied on having slightly better household conditions than them to mock and show off relentlessly.

Among them, someone often used the name of sympathy to say that Yun Yongchang was uneducated and could only do those kinds of manual jobs, and that the dust on his body had melted right into his skin and bones, impossible to wash off even if he tried.

Yun Li had been young at the time, and her personality wasn't as quiet and timid as it was now. Unlike Yun Yongchang, who would respond in silence, she didn't just take it; every single time, she felt indignant and furious on her father's behalf, sharp-tonguedly snapping right back at them.

Even now, when she saw those relatives, she still couldn't muster up a pleasant expression.

Because of that, she detested people who thought they were superior to others just because they lived glamorous lives.

Du Gefei's words also reminded Yun Li of her father's past treatment. Suppressing her anger, she said, "It seems your background is quite impressive."

Du Gefei: "It's all right."

Before she could finish, Yun Li added, "Turns out you wanted Fu Shize's WeChat before, though I wasn't very clear about it. After all, when I saw you asking a bunch of people for it that day, there was no way I could remember everyone."

Clearly thinking she was a soft persimmon easy to bully, Du Gefei's expression froze when she was suddenly snapped back at like this.

Unable to put on a smiling face while facing someone hostile the way Du Gefei did, Yun Li said expressionlessly, "By the way, since your background is so great, why didn't he give you his WeChat?"

Du Gefei: "That's because—"

"Oh, looks like he has zero interest in you either." Yun Li had no intention of listening to her spin tales and directly cut her off, "So what if someone is in a certain profession or how much they make a month—what does that have to do with you?"

It wasn't until Yun Li arrived back home that her anger gradually subsided.

Hindsight made her realize that her combat prowess just now seemed to have overperformed. This feeling was incredible and a bit buoyant, making her mood improve by leaps and bounds for no apparent reason.

Yun Li opened WeChat and found that both Yang Fang and Yun Ye had tried to reach her.

Yang Fang offered some words of comfort, saying much the same things as usual, mainly trying to mediate. Meanwhile, Yun Ye—who knew from where—was exceptionally well-informed: [Did you fight with Dad again?]

Yun Li: [Don't you have classes to attend?]

Yun Ye: [Mom asked me to comfort you.]

Yun Li couldn't help telling her: [I just got into an argument with someone, and I actually won.]

Yun Ye: [Oh.]

Yun Li: [Don't you think that's incredible?]

Yun Ye: [Not really.]

Yun Li: [?]

Yun Ye: [You've never lost an argument with me; every time, you leave me speechless.]

Yun Li: [?]

Yun Ye: [You probably haven't noticed it yourself, but while you might be a bit tongue-tied around people normally, the moment you get angry, your combat power skyrockets.]

Yun Ye: [Still, that's pretty good.]

Yun Ye: [Social anxiety doesn't mean cowardice.]

After ending the conversation, Yun Li was still pondering his words, feeling against all odds that this younger brother of hers actually had some use after all. She got up and went to the kitchen to grab herself an ice pop.

Reviewing the "combat" from just moments ago, she remembered Du Gefei saying that Fu Shize was a repairman.

Even knowing it wasn't true, hearing someone else talk about him like that still left a sour taste in Yun Li's chest.

Come to think of it, if he went to graduate school, he should have graduated by now. Given his impressive resume, he ought to be working at a major corporation or doing scientific research or something similar.

Could it be because this store was run by a relative?

Recalling how familiar the few of them looked when dining together last time, Yun Li felt that this possibility was quite high.

Yun Li sat in front of her computer and skimmed Station E for a bit; there were already quite a few private messages urging her to update, which she guiltily chose to ignore.

Ever since she began preparing for the graduate entrance exams, all of Yun Li's energy had been consumed by that four-square-meter study room. Back then, spending even a few minutes editing videos was a luxury. Every day she had yearned for the day she would be released from that cage, but on the day she truly regained her new life, she had to learn a whole new way of living.

Slacking off, yet comfortable.

Just as Yun Li was biting into her ice pop, her phone screen lit up with a video call notification, displaying none other than Fu Shize's highly recognizable name.

Yun Li jumped in fright, and the freezing ice pop slid down her esophagus; her instinctive reaction was that he had dialed the wrong person.

During the moment she hesitated, the call had already hung up.

Failing to catch the call left Yun Li feeling a tinge of vexation for a split second, alongside an involuntary sigh of relief.

Yet before she could catch her breath for even two seconds, the screen once again displayed Fu Shize's incoming video call.

Yun Li muted her computer. Every single vibration and ring of her phone magnified within her senses, accompanied by the barely perceptible trembling of the desk.

Gathering twelve-tenths of her courage, Yun Li switched the video mode to audio mode and answered, pretending as if nothing had happened as she responded: "Hello."

There was no response from the other end of the line.

Yun Li usually preferred quiet, but at this moment, the silence felt like grenades primed to explode.

With a burst of static, noisy human voices came through the phone.

"Sister Lili, are you at school?" Yun Li barely managed to distinguish through the form of address that it was Fu Zhengchu.

She suddenly realized that her heart-pounding panic just now was completely a case of over-interpreting.

Fu Zhengchu: "Today is the school's Hundred Clubs Fair, Sister Lili, do you want to come check out our booth and hang out?"

Rarely receiving invitations from acquaintances she wasn't very close with, Yun Li didn't know how to refuse for a moment: "Sure." She paused, then added: "My very first reaction when I answered this call was thinking it was your little uncle calling."

However, Fu Zhengchu didn't seem to hear clearly, his voice raising a bit, "I have to get to work, you've gotta come support us—"

He abruptly hung up the phone.

Originally, she had wanted to test the waters to see if Fu Shize was around. After pondering for a moment, Yun Li felt ashamed of her own probing; Fu Zhengchu was probably just extending a warm invitation, while her own ulterior motives were glaringly obvious.

Maybe Fu Shize wasn't even at school, and just happened to be standing next to him.

Besides, she didn't need to overthink things so much.

Was she not going to go support Fu Zhengchu's booth just because Fu Shize wasn't there?

Yun Li remorsefully realized—

She actually had been thinking precisely that.

The Hundred Clubs Fair was an event where various club organizations on campus conducted centralized promotions. Each person-in-charge would set up tents along both sides of the campus plaza, lining them up into a long dragon, resembling a bustling midday market.

The last time Yun Li had encountered a similar event was when she first entered university.

Except her interview hadn't gone well, leaving her without participation in any club organizations through her undergraduate years.

There wasn't much else to do in the afternoon either, so Yun Li bit into her ice pop, picked up her bag, and headed out.

The school wasn't far from her rented apartment. After walking to the school gate, Yun Li took the shuttle bus into the campus as usual.

Still some distance away from the plaza, Yun Li could already hear the dense clamor of noise and music. The entrance was packed with dense throngs of heads, and a small stage had even been set up in the center of the grounds.

After getting off the bus, Yun Li moved along with the crowd. The promoters seemed to mistake her for an undergraduate freshman, handing her promotional flyers left and right.

After walking around a full circle, she finally managed to find Fu Zhengchu tucked away in a corner of the plaza.

"Sister Lili!" Fu Zhengchu was wearing a college polo shirt, with his cap printed with the South Wuhu Institute of Technology school crest. He had been talking intensely with a freshman, but the moment he spotted Yun Li, he neatly shoved a flyer into the newcomer's hands to dismiss them.

Noticing the thick stack of flyers in Yun Li's hand.

Fu Zhengchu: "Those are no good, Sister Lili, just check out our club's."

He domineeringly snatched away that pile of promotional sheets and pulled a fresh one out for Yun Li from the document pouch hanging around his neck.

It was an outdoor sports club called "Climbing High".

Fu Zhengchu put on a serious face, clearing his throat: "We're the school's only outdoor sports club, and also the largest in scale. I'm the vice president."

To highlight his own club's competitiveness, Fu Zhengchu spoke with great conviction: "Plus, I recently moved heaven and earth with a tremendous amount of effort to secure a sponsorship—super loads of money!"

No sooner had his voice dropped than Yun Li noticed a line of text written at the bottom—"Sponsored by EAW Virtual Reality Experience Center."

It was followed by EAW's detailed address and brief introduction, and presenting this promotional flyer at the store could even get you a twenty percent discount.

Yun Li: "......"

The booth for the "Climbing High" outdoor sports club was not large, formed by pushing two 1.5-meter tables together in an L-shape, with a few students sitting beneath the tent guiding freshmen to fill out application forms.

As the sponsor, EAW had successfully printed its logo and images of its core projects right onto their tent canopy.

The booth's roll-up banner was unexpectedly set a little apart, with a flat desk placed in front of it and unopened EAW packaging boxes resting on the ground.

Standing in front of the booth, Yun Li noticed a pair of limbs occasionally stretching out near the roll-up banner.

It was Fu Shize.

His leg propped up on the ground, his dress trousers sharp and neat, they did nothing to conceal his tall and straight posture. When his utility knife sliced through the packing tape all the way to the bottom, his body pulled backward in tandem, revealing a sharp and well-defined jawline.

The scorching daylight made his complexion appear even paler, his eyes flickering between light and shadow. Clearly possessing features that could express emotion, amidst the bustling crowds he instead remained completely indifferent and silent.

As if suddenly realizing something, Fu Shize raised his gaze and looked toward her direction.

Feeling like a peeping tom, Yun Li hastily withdrew her gaze. Fortunately, Fu Zhengchu discovered his presence and directly interrupted Yun Li's guilty peeping with a loud shout.

"Little Uncle!" Fu Zhengchu lugged a cardboard box, running panting toward Fu Shize.

Yun Li slowly followed over, meeting Fu Shize's gaze, and nodded rather unnaturally.

Toward her arrival, Fu Shize didn't show much reaction. After giving her an indifferent glance, he continued organizing the cardboard boxes Fu Zhengchu had carried over.

Inside them were neatly stacked promotional pens, canvas bags, and folders, with the three letters "EAW" and the address printed on the corners. They looked custom-made.

Fu Zhengchu helped spread out the prizes on the table, arranging them slightly: "These are prizes used to attract traffic. People get a prize just for playing a game once, they can just pick whatever they want."

They were all relatively standard prizes, but Yun Li noticed that a half-crescent moon was printed on the sky-blue canvas bag, alone and dyed onto the bottom—it was a daytime moon. Yun Li retracted her gaze, only to find herself unable to resist stealing a few more looks.

Fu Shize was currently listening to Fu Zhengchu explain the prize distribution rules, responding casually every now and then, sounding less than fully invested.

Yun Li had no idea what she was expecting. She had initially thought there was a one-in-a-million chance that the two of them had coordinated to have her come over.

Now Fu Shize's indifference completely shattered that wild fantasy into pieces.

Standing in place feeling rather constrained, Yun Li had no choice but to repeatedly fiddle back and forth with the prizes on the table.

"Aren't these prizes pretty good?" Fu Zhengchu suddenly asked her, his tone full of triumph.

"They're all quite nice." Feeling a bit embarrassed, perhaps to make herself feel less awkward, Yun Li drummed up another topic, "It's quite a coincidence, too—I went for an interview at EAW this morning."

"That's fantastic, Sister Lili, you guys will be in the same company from now on." Fu Zhengchu was exceptionally happy upon hearing this news, turning around with a deliberately serious face, "Little Uncle."

"Stop giving Sister Lili trouble."

Thinking Fu Shize wouldn't respond, he suddenly spoke up: "Then I'm heading back."

Fu Zhengchu: "Little Uncle, how can you leave!"

Fu Shize: "Not causing trouble."

Fu Zhengchu: "My bad."

......

Fu Zhengchu hurriedly changed the subject: "Since Sister Lili and EAW have such a great affinity, why don't you be our very first tester? All these giveaways have the EAW logo on them, you know."

The tone of his question seemed as though he wanted a definitive answer. Yun Li stammered for a moment, "Then I can play a bit later..."

Fu Zhengchu: "Which one do you want? I'll have Little Uncle save it for you!"

Intending to hide her desire for the canvas bag, Yun Li gave a reserved response: "They're all pretty good."

"Is that so." Fu Zhengchu was straightforward by nature, his face full of nonchalance: "Forget it, Sister Lili, just take a gift right now, it's fine, they were all bought by EAW anyway."

Before she even had a chance to refuse, Yun Li was shoved a box of commemorative pens.

Fu Zhengchu still wore the expression of someone who had just performed a monumental good deed.

Yun Li: "......”